The garden looks pretty dismal. It held on as long as it could, bravely carrying on, the annuals continuing to bloom, putting all their heart into it, gifting us with colour this late into fall. But of course it couldn't go on any longer; that old adage that 'all good things come to an end' isn't necessarily always true, but in this instance nature is queen and she decides when a season ends.

Yesterday afternoon I removed the last of the annuals from the puts and garden urns, sad to see them go feeling pretty miserable about composting their bright, piquant colours. I swept the walkways of leaves and filled several compost bags with the results. It was a cold, blustery day, but the work although not pleasant in its outcome, was pleasant in its performance. After all, I was in the garden, busy with fall preparations for winter's onset. It's all part of gardening.

The temperature plunged fairly quickly last night. The result was a hard frost. And trees like the magnolias, the weeping mulberries and the crabapple trees all lost their grip on their leaves. They seemed to crisp up and tumble en masse to the ground. There are mounds of frost-nipped leaves everywhere. And more to come. Tonight we'll see another hard frost when the temperature once again dips to -6C.

When we were in the ravine later this afternoon it was clear that the  remaining rain puddles on the forest floor had frozen, and then thawed. The saturated forest hasn't the capacity to absorb it all. And when the ground is frozen hard it's all the more difficult. We could actually feel the difference underfoot, the forest floor gained a degree of frost but not very deeply, not quite yet. In a few days' time we'll bounce back up to 11C, for a day or two before the numbing cold returns and becomes even icier.

We're grateful there are still areas in the ravine with freshly-fallen leaves in lovely pastel shades of yellows and pinks. In some parts of the forest tall deciduous trees like poplars, oaks, maples, willows and birch are now pretty bare looking, their trunks black against the backdrop of the forest. The verdant evergreens provide some colour relief, at the very least, where they predominate.

When we pass one of those rain ponds on the forest floor, mirrored in them is the stark reflection of dark, bare trunks. Everything  looks sere and wasted. Which is what happens when winter arrives; there is no longer growing vegetation, either ornamental nor food crops, and hunger stalked the land in ancient times until granaries began overwintering vital grains to sustain hungry populations.

This is the time of year when Demeter begins wringing her hands in despair, pleading with Hades to release her daughter Persephone from his dark, dank Underworld. But because the disconsolate Persephone had eaten a few pomegranate seeds Hades claimed her as his possession, finally heeding Zeus' command to return his daughter so her mother, goddess of the earth, would cease mourning her absence, turning the earth to a non-functioning state. Finally agreeing to allow Persephone to resurface for six months of the year before returning to him once again when winter arrives.